BBC presenter Maya Jama is once again addressing the backlash over a resurfaced tweet that caused a firestorm of controversy earlier in the year.

Shortly after the 23-year-old was announced as the BBC’s new presenter of Radio 1’s Greatest Hits, a tweet from April 2012 came to light in which she laughed at another person’s joke about dark-skinned women.

Jama made a “genuine and sincerest apology” not only to “dark-skinned women but to ALL women”, but those words also caused yet more backlash, since many felt she was minimising the offence caused to those targeted by the joke.

In a second statement, Jama explained that, in her haste to publicly apologise, she had not fully expressed her feelings on colourism and regretted not making amends specifically to dark-skinned women.

“I know how out of line it is to post something like that when so many dark skinned black women have been hurt and insulted by similar comments for such a long time and I honestly am disappointed in myself whether the tweets were posted 6 years ago or yesterday they are not cool and it was ignorant and careless,” she wrote.

“Colourism is not something to be entertained ever & I do not support it. What I reposted was unacceptable in every way and I was wrong. For that again, I’m sorry.”

That’s all Jama said about the controversy until an appearance on this week’s edition of the Receipts Podcast, which was devoted to the topic of colourism (via Metro).

Jama admitted in her interview that she actually had to stay away from social media at the height of the backlash because the anger directed at her was so intense.

“For my own mental health, I don’t want to be sat there scrolling through people sending me abuse and death threats over something that I am not today,” she explained.

The DJ also spoke in depth about her half-Swedish, half-Somali heritage — specifically how she was made to feel ashamed by her background as a student.

“There were these boys and they were so horrible to me when they found out that I was Somali,” she remembered, adding later: “When they asked me where I’m from I used to be like, ‘Yeah I’m Spanish and Jamaican’ or something like that – and just made a whole completely new background because I didn’t want people to judge me from where I was from.”

Comparing her childhood experience with the colourism backlash she’s recently experienced, the presenter said: “I get it, it’s not the same thing, but I understand the feeling of people being rude and taking the piss out of where you are from. Or your race or your skin colour. When it’s something you can’t change.”

You can listen to Maya Jama’s full interview on the Receipts Podcast by clicking here.

Readers affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans free on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org) or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to visit mentalhealth.gov.